1) Field of the Invention
The invention is in the field of Semiconductor Structures.
2) Description of Related Art
For the past several decades, semiconductor devices such as Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors (MOS-FETs) have been fabricated using doped crystalline silicon for active regions, e.g. channel regions, and amorphous silicon dioxide for dielectric regions, e.g. gate dielectric layers. The beauty of the silicon/silicon dioxide pairing is that the silicon dioxide can be formed directly on the surface of a crystalline silicon substrate via heating the substrate in the presence of oxygen. The process is very controllable and can reliably provide silicon dioxide films as thin as 2-3 monolayers thick.
In the drive for ever-faster semiconductor devices, however, it may be desirable to utilize a channel material other than crystalline silicon. One caveat is that very few other semiconductor materials, if any, form as compatible a surface amorphous oxide layer as does the crystalline silicon/silicon dioxide pairing. This has made the utilization of channel materials other than silicon quite daunting. Thus, a method to form active regions with compatible dielectric layers, and the resultant structures, is described herein.